Evergetism among the Bishops of Hispania between the Sixth and Seventh Centuries: A Dialogue between Archaeological and Documentary Sources

The role of the bishops of Hispania in the construction of churches in the late antique period has been highlighted by a traditional historiography which considered the religious unification under the Catholic creed by the Third Council of Toledo in the year 589 c.e. as the starting point of an active period of construction characterized by close collaboration between the church and the Visigothic monarchy. The principal objective of this paper is to call into question this hypothesis by presenting in an orderly fashion the documentary, epigraphic, and archaeological evidence regarding the sixth and seventh centuries. Conclusions force to reconsider not only the role of the bishops, actually often recorded as responsible for consecration rather than for construction, but also of the private patronage and that of the church-monarchy alliance.